


Scrawl

by vanitaslaughing



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:47:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9526463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanitaslaughing/pseuds/vanitaslaughing
Summary: There's the names of the people you have a special bond with. They come in black, white, or dim colours...Ardyn has one in blood red. He doesn't know what it means. And then it begins.





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is so wildly different from what i usually write im mostly squinting at it
> 
> also hi its 4am

It was a simple name etched into his skin, at first. There were countless things this name could mean, but Ardyn paid it no mind.

He had a mission in life to fulfill, an entire planet to save from the Starscourge. What did the name of a person he never met matter, despite the fact he met a fair share of people in his life? Besides, it wasn’t the only mark on his body. There was no meaning behind the one in his hands.

More time passed, and he was fairly certain that this person never existed. Would possibly never exist. He watched with a blank stare as people curled their lips in disgust.

Like animals.

Animals with names inked on their hands, arms, anywhere.

* * *

He mulled over it for a while. The red ink had long since turned bright red, standing out against the black veins he covered up with gloves, normally.

It had always been a simple name, very simple. _Noctis._ It was written in a handwriting that seemed to be befitting a child rather than the royal this Noctis’ has been, is, or will be according to his last name. A Lucis Caelum much like Ardyn before him, likely from Izunia’s side of the family. They are the ones who rule Lucis now, a land that still groans under the curse of the Starscourge. But they tossed the only Healer aside once they learned the Crystal had rejected him time and time again since he started healing them, and this time it’s Ardyn Lucis Caelum whose lips curl in disgust.

He’d done nothing wrong, yet everyone had tossed him aside and kicked him like an animal, until the dusty street was soaked in black blood and he was rather sure there was no whole bone in his body. They’d been oh so very terrified when they realised that he was still alive, despite the broken ribs having punctured literally every organ they could, despite his leg being half torn off and dangling strangely, despite the flow of blood slowly starting to ebb away because there simply _wasn’t any left in him._ Tossed him in a royal tomb, called it a day. He’d spent about thirty years recovering in there, slowly but steadily making sure he did not look like a maniac when he exited the place.

He half expected someone to stand out there, maybe even this mysterious _Noctis Lucis Caelum_ that this simple mark told him of. There was no one.

So he watched the people now, as nothing more but a strange traveller of a sort – they didn’t even remember a hundred years later, that there had been an older brother to Izunia I, that Izunia I wasn’t even supposed to be King of Lucis had the gods not decided to stomp on Ardyn and his desire to help every single person he came across in hopes of finding the person whose name was etched into his skin.

The marks were largely the same. Names on limbs.

Soulmates they called them at this point, and some had several. Some were in different colours, but not a single one person other than Ardyn had a name of a person currently not alive on the palms of their hands, let alone one in a nearly violently bright red. He started to realise a pattern, after a few years. Black were simple platonic soulmates. Any other colour meant that there was at least a certain degree of love. White meant that they were fated to be enemies. But there was nothing like this red that shone on his skin and in the dark, that bright red against his black veins.

Time passed, and he learned that names vanished when the corresponding person died. It was at first hilarious to watch then freak out over a simple written note on their skin disappearing. At some point he wondered if his had vanished and there never _was_ a Noctis to begin with.

He loses count of the years after a while, and the Lucis Caelum family continues merrily onwards… without anyone called Noctis in sight.

Eventually he noticed there’s a tiny scrawl on his right index finger. Barely readable, but there was another name, finely penned. Shorter, less silly than _Noctis Lucis Caelum_ , but it was simple black instead of strangely glowing blood red. That had to mean something.

* * *

He finds the person whose name he has on his index finger at some point. It’s blatantly obvious that this is entirely and completely one-sided – he doesn’t have any marks. None at all. Not even a small scrawl, a tiny scribble, not even just a simple line drawn on his arm. But Ardyn sees, and it clicks immediately.

He watched him pass through the region with his… friends? It was hard to tell what anything with a Lucis Caelum in the lead was going to produce, especially one as wildly unpredictable at that age like Regis Lucis Caelum. There was a neatly written name scrawled on the man’s neck, and another on the back of his hand, and the Prince seems to be having quite a lot of fun doing… whatever it was he was doing. Lucis was at war with Niflheim, this was not the right moment to have a road trip adventure of some sort with his friends and retainers.

Cor Leonis looked so out of place and slightly uncomfortable. He was younger than the rest of them, maybe even just one third of Cid Sophiar’s age, and he was clearly along as some sort of controlling element. A young Crownsguard-in-training, stuffed in the back of this ridiculously fancy car. Ardyn almost felt bad for the poor teenager.

He’d almost considered messing around in Insomnia after a while because this idiotic bunch of people made him legitimately laugh for the first time in ages.

Then the King died and things fell apart, and Ardyn returned to Niflheim.

He kept himself updated via spies, and reads those reports on the young Crownsguard progressing with interest.

Then one morning he woke in cold sweat, with his hand nearly burning up. The fine writing felt like a billion paper cuts, as if someone had sliced his entire hand open and dunked it into boiling salty water. It was bleeding – perfectly black – and he nearly chomped off his lower lip trying not to yell in the middle of the night in a familiar-unfamiliar room in Niflheim.

He almost has to pretend to be surprised at the news that the newborn Lucian prince was called _Noctis._ Whatever that red meant, it certainly hadn’t lied about the person in question.

The Accursed, as history and gods called him now, spent the next few years waiting. His hand always hurt, a dull throbbing pain as he switched through disguises like normal clothes and tried to get close to the Citadel. He ran into the Crownsguard several times, and he just couldn’t wrap his head around why exactly _this man’s name_ was on his finger, but usually the pain flared and he snapped back to the present.

The King of Light, the Crystal’s Chosen.

And all of a sudden Ardyn understood what that name on his hand meant. It was a subtle warning of what was to come, and the colour most likely had a meaning as well.

The Chancellor vanished, if only for a while. He spent what felt like an eternity slinking around the Royal Tomb they had locked him in, all these years ago, and he can see dark, nearly black stains on the walls and ground. He could almost trace his body on the ground, but it was nothing but a vaguely dark shadow in an equally dark tomb by now.

He left, again, and returned to Niflheim. Some people said that he had curled his lips in disgust when news of what the King was doing with his son reached him, and they kept him out of the loop deliberately.

He had a lot of time to think, and Ardyn recognised that this was his only chance at ending this game of chess. He was the pawn that reached the end of the board and became a queen, and the gods were uncertain what to play next. Ardyn Lucis Caelum sought out Ifrit and demanded an answer.

All he got was vague talk about all of this being written in the stars from the age of gods and fairy tales, and that he as Accursed had his role to play much like the Prince. Thus Ardyn started watching, and it filled him with distaste. The rest of the Six and the Crystal had been dealt a losing hand – their Chosen was a perfectly normal boy. A perfectly normal boy whose blue eyes were wide and full of curiosity, and there were several scrawls on his arms.

One was the name of the newly appointed Oracle, Lunafreya. A name in black ink, much like Cor Leonis’ name on Ardyn’s finger, except that Lunafreya too had a black mark somewhere on her right arm that read _Noctis Lucis Caelum_ in the same slightly unsteady handwriting that marked Ardyn’s constantly throbbing palm. It drove him near insane.

Any other person he would not have cared about, but the Chosen King had to take down the Accursed to free Eos; and freeing the planet was all that Ardyn Lucis Caelum ever wanted in his life. He had devoted his life to it, and the Six had deemed him enough of a nuisance in their pathetic game of chess that they turned him into what he thought he would have to fight one day.

He started crafting plans. He had to deal a losing hand to his opponents, because that was the only way to ensure that this friend to all living beings called Noctis would even remotely be ready to do what his fate demanded of him. Indeed, the longer Ardyn watched the more obvious it became that the 114th would never get the strength to kill another living being in cold blood. He needed to be riled, to be swept along by the tide, to nearly drown in his sorrow, rage and despair to finally _kill_.

Ardyn finally understood the mark in his hand when the fall of Insomnia was underway and he near jokingly chatted up the group of four that arrived at Galdin Quay. He felt a hot flash that started from his hand when Noctis furrowed his eyebrows at the stranger and then leaned over to his friends once Ardyn swayed out of sight. Of course, not before Ardyn made sure he checked for any other names written on the Prince’s skin. His companions were there, which the Accursed had guessed. So it was Lunafreya Nox Fleuret, Ignis Scientia, Gladiolus Amicitia and Prompto Argentum that needed to be taken care of somehow to make the fire burn within the Prince.

The King. His father would not live through the night. Ardyn sincerely hoped that Lunafreya would make it out and manage to carry on with what her fate demanded of her after finally finding one of the people whose name was scribbled on her arm and immediately losing him again.

He decided to trust in her to hold true until her time came.

* * *

Names vanished, but never completely.

They looked like burn scars, faded and barely noticeable but for the person who knew they lost a soulmate of theirs it was like staring at a terrible reminder. It drove Noctis near insane after Altissia, and Ardyn almost felt bad about it. _Almost._ He needed him to be stronger. Angrier.

He has his own burned-out names, but unlike Noctis these wounds are not fresh. He barely even remembers the name of these people, they were as fleeting as the feeble light of day. Ardyn was quite literally covered in burns just as much as his body was covered in scars from nearly getting torn apart entirely. Names of people he knew fleetingly.

He watches as the Crystal swallowed Noctis up, and waved off a bulled through the back. Sure, it felt uncomfortable as he swayed out of Zegnautus, but his job was mostly done. All that he needed to do was prepare for when Noctis would wake. And he was quite good at playing the waiting game.

Thus, he stared up at Cor Leonis with wide eyes when they met, with Ardyn between the claws of a Daemon and the former Crownsguard hunting his mark. For some reason the man did not recognise him as Imperial Chancellor Izunia, and instead offered the Accursed a hand.

“You injured?”

Ardyn shook his head, and thanked for the very dashing and timely rescue, but the Crownsguard merely sighs. Probably he sees him as another refugee to be taken in at Lestallum, and Ardyn immediately dashed that fear. Claimed he was another hunter, that he already lived around Lestallum and was not just another person seeing refuge from the endless darkness. Cor didn’t believe it, of course. The man looked like a clown and had nearly died between the claws of a Daemon, but he was not going to question it any more at this point.

He was endearing, in a strange way, the way he scuffled about chattering – even though his voice sounded like he hadn’t used it that much in a while – the way he flounced about.

They met several times during the endless night, fought together at some points as well. It made Ardyn almost sigh in disappointment when his hand started hurting again.

“You’re leaving, then?”

“Yes. Rejoice! Night’s coming to an end.”

Of course it was hard keeping everything a secret, especially when around someone as observant as Cor Leonis. At least that was what Ardyn kept telling himself when he admitted who he was about three years into the endless night as he and Cor spent the night in Lestallum. He expected to be sliced in half, and locked up, but there was nothing but a furrowed brow.

“I see.”

They never met again after they parted, in the tenth year of what some people called eternal darkness. Ardyn tried to not yield and storm out of Insomnia the night (in fact, night) he watched the campfire not too far from Insomnia. There was no point in leaving for Lestallum, there was no point in stupid words.

Two thousand years, and all led up to that moment of his hand nearly catching on fire when Noctis finally knocked him down. There was a surprised gasp in between these ragged breaths of exhaustion, and Ardyn couldn’t help but laugh slightly. His body was going numb, and he knew that unless Noctis hurried it up he would be back for another encore he didn’t want to go on.

Blood red, glowing. It wasn’t a soulmate mark like any other. What that mark meant, he finally, _finally_ realised when Noctis and he stared each other down in what mortals called the beyond. It wasn’t a mark that enemies carried. It wasn’t that of lovers, it wasn’t that of people who could tell each other everything.

It was the mark of judge, jury and executioner – and the executed.

* * *

The sun rose, and the Marshal knew that the King was dead.

He looked at the faded, burned out name on his hand and sighed. It had always been easier to cover it up, to pretend it wasn’t there, and it was covered by a terrible scar he got as child anyway. But the fact that the by now equally dead Imperial Chancellor’s name had been emblazoned on his hand remained.

Maybe dusk would change his sullen mind.


End file.
